I definitely liked this episode more since it was character focused rather than training. We finally get some light on where Gyomei is coming from as a person and a demon slayer and just like the majority of the Hashira, has a tragic backstory. It’s hard for me to tell whether or not I’m just used to having all the characters in this series have sad pasts or if it’s because of the pacing, but Gyomei’s backstory didn’t hit me as hard as it should have. Though I do think part of it had to do with it just coming out of seemingly no where once Tanjiro. Especially since Gyomei didn’t really interact with Tanjiro up until this moment so it did feel like it came out of nowhere without proper build up. Especially since we only found out about Gyomei’s disdain towards children at the same time of his flashback. Makes me wish we got to see and interact with him more before we got his backstory.
Despite Gyomei essentially trauma dumping on Tanjiro out of no where and I didn’t feel as much emotion towards it as I should have, I do admit it was still pretty tragic. The poor guy was living a peaceful life with a bunch of orphaned children and seemed to have a nice thing going as they all helped take care of each other. Only for one of them to throw all of them under the rug by offering to sacrifice them to a demon just to save his own life. I cannot even begin to fully unpack how disgusting this is to me. Gyomei took him in when he had no where else to go and all the other children must have cared for him. And how does he repay all of that kindness? I have so much more to say on the topic, but I’ll leave it at that for the time being. It’s honestly no wonder why Gyomei has his reservations towards children. Especially after one selfish action lead to so many lives lost. Which isn’t helped by the fact that after he essentially pulverized that demon until the sun came up, the one child that had survived ended up “turning” him in to the authorities.
It’s so tragic because clearly, she was TRYING to describe the demon that had attacked them, but she was way too young to have experienced such horror so it’s not surprising that she couldn’t communicate clearly after being so shaken up. And because demons leave behind no traces of themselves when they die, it did absolutely nothing to show Gyomei in a good light considering he was covered in blood and surrounded by the corpses of all the other children. I’m actually pretty sad that Gyomei seems to harbor some disappointment towards Sayu for telling the others that “he” was the one who murdered the children and was only thinking of her own well being at the time. Even though she was just a traumatized child who couldn’t fully articulate what happened and most likely didn’t even mean to get him into trouble. You can’t expect someone, much less a freaking four year old, to relay information in a time of crisis or shock. The ONLY one at fault in this situation and should be held accountable for his actions is that kid that LEAD the demon to the others to eat just so he can save himself. Thankfully the master was able to save Gyomei before he got executed, but gosh… what that kid did ruined so many lives in one night.
We shift gears a bit when Tanjiro goes over to Giyu’s place for his next training (to which we don’t even know what Giyu’s training even entails yet) only to find Giyu and Sanemi sparring. Clearly, Sanemi is still pretty salty about Giyu’s words of “not being like the other Hashira” as Giyu never explained to them what he actually meant by that. Though I do find it hilarious that despite Sanemi’s… personality issues, Giyu still wants to be friends with the guy. And him wanting to have a red bean mochi on his person just so he can give it to Sanemi is freaking hilarious. With how he is, I doubt Sanemi would accept it. The two really need to talk things out first before Giyu can be friends with him. Though it does seem like Giyu is actually trying to take steps in trying to get to know the other Hashiras more, even if it does feel a bit too abrupt for my liking. Good for him I suppose. And as much as he claims he isn’t even on the other Hashiras’ levels, the fact he tied with Sanemi in their sparring session speaks volumes of his power level. Guy really needs to learn to realize how strong he actually is.
And while Sanemi is still extremely aggro towards Tanjiro, I feel like Tanjiro might be slowly getting to him little by little. It’ll probably take longer, but I do believe that Tanjiro’s kindness can eventually get to him. But before we could see more of what Sanemi thinks, THE INFILTRATION IS HERE. I honestly didn’t think that Muzan would be making an actual appearance at the estate like this. Even less just WALKING UP TO THE FRONT DOOR like he owns the place. Though I won’t lie, I did skip a little bit of Muzan’s walking cycle because it was taking way too long for my liking lol. I don’t think we needed 2 minutes of Muzan’s dramatic walk sequence… Anyways, I think I do know what is going to happen during this meeting (because of tv tropes oop), but I don’t know how it’ll all play out. Either way, this looks to be extremely bad for the Demon Slayer Corp as there is no way that Muzan is going to leave this place with the master still alive. Demon Slayer continuing to be rude with their cliffhangers once again and way too many unanswered questions that were left hanging in several episodes this season. Next episode will be the last one of the season and I don’t even know how they’re gonna end this rather boring arc.
[AN]: Also, I know I didn’t really talk about Zenitsu’s situation because I know too much of what is going on so I don’t think I can really comment on that in this post. But hopefully I can talk about it in the future.
